Captivity
by Li Ying Fa
Summary: One-shot written for the Shitennou Forums 2008 ficathon. The senshi are captured by a mysterious force and come face to face with something unexpected. Virtual cookies to whoever spots my nod to the series. May or may not be continued.


Ficathon 2008 Entry #1

Theme: Group Interaction

Author: Li Ying Fa

Captivity

_Plip. Plip. Sniff. Plip. Plip. Hiccup. _The repetitive sound invaded Rei's consciousness, pulling her back from the engulfing darkness that she had been floating in. Her mind felt sluggish as she tried to regain control over her senses. Slowly, she became aware of other sounds and sensations: the scrape of metal against concrete, a slight rustling of cloth, a pointy edge jabbing into her side, a tightness around her wrist, and the laboured breathing of another. Wincing, she shifted, attempting to get away from the offending edge, only to encounter a warm mass. "Are you all right miss?" a high, childish voice asked.

Blinking groggily, she managed to get her eyes open to meet a pair of eyes the colour of star sapphires staring into her own. Surprised by her responsiveness, the owner of the eyes pulled back suddenly, revealing a young boy of around 7 or 8 years of age with a mop of reddish brown hair, tearstained face and a runny nose. '_The source of the sniffling,'_ she thought to herself, examining him as she attempted to haul herself up. An act that she immediately regretted as her muscles screamed in protest the second she started to move. Collapsing back down, she lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. "Miss?" came the young voice again.

Managing to roll slightly so that she was facing him, she gave him an attempt at a reassuring smile. "I'm okay. I just need to lie here for a bit, all right? I'm Rei. What's your name?"

"Niko," he replied quietly, rubbing at his face with his sleeve, "Hoshino Nagihiko, but everyone calls me Niko."

"How long have you been here Niko?" Rei asked gently, "And do you know where here is?"

"I've been here for a really long time," he answered after a moment of thought, "Me and the other boys. The other ladies haven't been here as long."

"Other ladies?" Rei said, suddenly alert, "Where?"

"Look," he responded, pointing over her shoulder.

Ignoring the pain, Rei forced herself into a seated position facing where he was pointing. She could now see that Niko and herself were in a barred cell in a large circular room divided into four main cells. All four cells were occupied, the one across from her containing a young blonde boy and... "Ami!"

"Rei!" the bluenette replied, "You're finally awake. We were so worried when you were brought in. You looked bad and you weren't responding at all."

"Thank goodness," Makoto added from the cell beside Ami's, "Is everyone else alright? Is the bunny secure?"

Rei nodded, "Earth has the bunny. The Outer Rim is recalled. Love is on the loose as far as I know. What is going on? Why are we here? Who are these children?"

Niko came up beside Rei and put his hand on her elbow to help her remain upright. "I told you," he said, "My name is Niko. I'm seven. I want to go home, I want my mommy and daddy."

Both Ami and Makoto had grave looks on their faces. Putting their hands on the shoulders of their cell mates, they led them closer to the bars so that they could all take part in the conversation. Rei took Niko's hand off her shoulder and lurched upward to get closer to the bars herself. "Rei, wait!" Makoto said, suddenly alarmed.

Rei had gotten no more than two feet away from Niko when the young boy suddenly started to scream in pain. "Niko!" the young boys in the other cells called out.

"Get back towards him," Ami ordered when Rei hesitated for a moment, unsure of what was going on.

Unused to this tone from her shy friend, Rei followed orders and moved back to the cot, sitting down beside Niko, who had stopped screaming and now lay panting, his eyes glassy from the pain. "What happened?" she questioned.

"Look at your wrist," Makoto replied.

Glancing down, Rei found a thick, metallic band encircled tightly around her left wrist. Strange runes and circuitry adorned it. Niko's right wrist bore a matching band. Makoto held up her left hand. "It's how they ensure we behave," she said, bitterness dripping from every word, "They didn't even have to take our henshin wands. Ami figured it out pretty fast. We move more than two feet from them, and it delivers a high-intensity electrical shock to their systems. We try to take the bracelets off, the same. If we touch the bars, if we try to use our powers, if we even reach into our subspace pockets...all the same. It goes the other way too."

"Why," Rei asked, "Why go to these lengths? Why these children?"

"Because," Makoto's cellmate said quietly, "We're important to them too, not just you."

"Who are you, really?" Ami said, facing the white-haired child, "You've never mentioned this before."

"Like I said before," he answered, his face composed, "My name is Shiroi Kazuki. I'm ten. My family lives in Odaiba. Except...I keep having these dreams...dreams where I'm not Kazuki. I can't really remember them, but I know they're important, and that they're the reason that we're here."

"What about the rest of you?" Rei asked.

The blonde boy in Ami's cell answered first. "I'm Jin. Takashima Ryuujin. I'm eight. My family lives in the Chiba district."

Lastly, the blonde boy in a cell by himself spoke up. "I'm Sakurano Shizuya. I'm also seven. I'm from Minatoku."

"They were here before us," Makoto added in.

"All of you just appeared," Shizuya said, his green eyes thoughtful, "One by one."

"Have you ever seen your captors?" Ami questioned.

Kazuki shook his head, "I was going to school and suddenly I was here. I was the first, but the other boys came really soon after."

"It was the same for me," Niko continued, "Food appears three times a day. At first, Kazu told us not to eat it, but we got hungry after a couple of days."

"We have to drink out of the sinks," Jin added in petulantly, "And now that there are girls here, Kazu said we gotta be careful when we go to the bathroom."

He emphasized his point by sweeping his arm at the toilet that stood in the corner of his cell. Rei realized that each cell had one, and that there was nothing to obscure the view of anyone watching. Ami blushed, "Thank you for your consideration boys."

"Do you know how long we've been here?" Shizuya asked Rei plaintively.

Rei regarded each boy for a moment, searching through her memory for any reports of a number of children going missing. "I don't know," she finally answered, "I don't remember any reports of a fair amount of kids missing. Makoto's been gone for about two weeks, and Ami, a week. Do you remember the date you went missing?"

"I do, I do," Shizuya announced.

"Show-off," Jin muttered.

Ami hushed him, "Please continue Shizuya."

The young boy beamed at Ami and stuck his tongue out at Jin. "It was March 7th, 1992. I remember because there was this Anime premiering that I really wanted to watch."

"1992!"

"Why are you saying it like that?" Kazuki asked, his tone suspicious.

"Because it's 2008," Makoto blurted out.

"It can't be," Shizuya said carefully, sounding much older than his seven years, "Because that would mean that we've been here for sixteen years, making Kazu twenty-six, Jin twenty-four, and me and Niko twenty-three."

Everyone stared at him, surprised by his quick calculations. "What," he asked defensively, "I may be seven, but I was in Primary 6. I was going into middle school next year."

"There must be some sort of time distortion here," Ami deduced.

"That's why we haven't aged and why we haven't really felt a huge passage of time," Shizuya finished.

"That's exactly right," Ami praised.

Jin snorted inelegantly, "If you're such a braniac Zuya, why haven't you figured a way out of here?"

"Leave him alone," Kazuki ordered the younger boy, "If you don't have anything useful to say..."

Rei pierced the blonde boy with a chilling glare, "We _will_ get out of here, and sniping at each other isn't going to help."

Jin smirked and sauntered closer to the bars, still within range of Ami, and gave Rei an audacious wink. "Jin," Kazuki said, a note of warning clear in his voice.

"Fine," he huffed out, "Sorry Zuya, not your fault that we're here."

Niko, who had been silent since learning what year it was, finally spoke up. "Sixteen years," he said in a small voice, "Does that mean our families stopped looking for us?"

"They probably think we're dead," Jin added morosely.

"Jin," Rei scolded, putting an arm around Niko, "Don't make it worse."

Jin felt a surge of anger and annoyance at the dark-haired woman, especially since she had her arm around Niko. "What?" he lashed out, "It's true. Who's to say we won't be stuck in here until we rot. Except that we can't rot because we can't even get older. Our families have probably moved on, our friends have forgotten us..."

Rei's heart went out to the distressed blonde. "It'll be all right Jin," she reassured him. "We'll all get out of here together. They may have three of us, but we have friends looking for us on the outside. They'll come for us."

"And we'll be ready," Makoto added fiercely, "Nothing can hold a senshi for long."

"Sen...shi?" Kazuki said slowly, "Soldier...Sailor Soldier..."

"You've heard of us?" Makoto asked, surprised.

"That's impossible," Ami reasoned out, "They were taken long before we became Senshi."

"Then how would he know what you were called?" Shizuya questioned.

Kazuki had a bewildered expression on his face, his gray eyes unfocussed. "I just, kind of, knew."

The three women exchanged a worried glance, there was clearly much more to this situation than they had initially thought. Looking back at the white-haired boy, Rei began to open up her senses, trying to figure out at least a part of the mystery behind these children.

Suddenly, a shimmering light appeared in Shizuya's cell, fading away to reveal a barely conscious....

"Minako?" the three senshi exclaimed.

"Zoicite?" Minako's voice said weakly.

"Venus?" Kazuki breathed out.

**THE END (For now?)**


End file.
